Sunday, June 11, 2006

i come by it honest

Soon after I started bitching about the Star's headlines on their website I got an e-mail from my grandma.

I just read your criticism on local headlines. The old Truth'ers would say sounds like what we heard for a good many years. Carl would be chuckling.

Carl would be grandpa. The old Truth'ers would be the editorial staff of The Elkhart Truth, where my grandpa was the top news editor for decades. He passed away a couple of years ago.

Today I got another note from my aunt.

Joe - I have to tell you that I take great delight everytime I read your blog entries about terrible headlines. They always put me back in the Elkhart Truth newsroom in about 1972 when I was working as a summer intern. At the horsehoe-shaped editors desk, your Grandpa Miller sat in the middle of the horsehoe, like at the head of the table, writing headlines to all of the stories he selected for that day's edition. When he was done counting characters in headlines, he would lean back in his chair, grin ear to ear, laugh, and say "This is the best job in the world!" And, wonderfully, he meant it!

It seems ink is passed down through blood.

(A variation on this story: In his obituary, Grandpa's former co-workers wrote that when the last bit of copy was sent to the presses each afternoon he would invariably shout, Easy money! "It wasn't," they wrote. "But he made it seem like it was.")

Forget the nerdy reputation that debate has. Instead think of a scenario as exciting as a sports game with high stakes like triumphing over racism. bad politics and abject poverty... An important, thoughtful and provocative look at race and class in America.

- The Boston Globe

Joe Miller's enthusiasm is infectious and the plot creates the suspense of a good courtroom thriller.

- Entertainment Weekly

The minute I finished Joe Miller's Cross-X, I held the book out in front of me -- amazed, rapturous, and hopeful... Miller's mesmerizing, vivid accounts of the debates will leave you crouched in your seat, holding your breath... An incredibly powerful, daringly hopeful book.

- Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Irresistible... Miller begins breezily but is soon deeply invested in the Central squad's mission to not only master the debate game on its own terms but revolutionize it with flashes of poetry and hip-hop wordplay... If all these kids could run things, Miller implies, imagine what could get done.